Whilst avoiding the eye of my dentist as he drilled further into my sorely under-maintained wisdom teeth, I managed to catch most of today''s (Thursday''s) lunchtime news.
The now familiar shots of the great and the good attending the DNA office for yet another anti-corruption case were the lead story.
Some of you may recall something similar happening during the earlier part of the Constantinescu period, when various businessmen with a dubious past were questioned about various irregular dealings only to have their cases miraculously closed before any formal charges were pressed against them.
This time the story is a little different as the Presidency, carrying out the directive of the EU to crack down on corruption, has focused on those in the current opposition who are alleged to have engaged into corrupt practices.
Attacking senior PSD members who held power for such a long period of time could look like political suicide for all but the very cleanest of Romanian politicians. One can only imagine what information is held in a well-hidden filing cabinet about those who were formerly in opposition when the PSD were in Government.
One can also look at the actual cases being brought against the same PSD figures and begin to appreciate the game that is being played.
Various stories circulate about senior politicians on all sides and the vast sums of money that have been "earned" from classic state to private corrupt transactions. One need only look as to where every single one of Russia''s billionaires made his first serious cash to understand how lucrative the state can be as a business partner. To the extent that anyone of the people currently being investigated engaged in corrupt dealings, it can be assumed that the type of deals were in a bigger league than simply buying property at an alleged undervalue.
This clearly places the so-called anti-corruption drive into the political arena. These investigations can be looked at as if each was a hyena biting a small piece off the carcass of the formerly all-powerful PSD. Launching larger, more damning actions should lead to more conclusive results and possible convictions, but these also run the risk of those being attacked relying on the philosophy of attack is the best form of defence. For the wide array of people working both at the Presidency and for the Government can be assumed to contain a few whose history is not saintly enough to withstand serious counter-attack.
The more cautious approach is clever enough to undermine the characters being attacked without there being much chance of formal charges being brought due to the scope for wiggle room to explain away the alleged "corrupt" practices.
In the UK, shortly after Gordon Brown became Minister of Finance he was accused of buying a flat at an undervalue simply because he was smart enough to purchase it off a firm of receivers who were liquidating a company''s assets. Anyone who knows anything about British politics can confirm that Gordon Brown has no personal interest in money and his name has never been attached to corruption scandals he has benefited from. However it was enough to raise questions and generate front-page news in London.
In Romania the opposite is true. A similar allegation (on a larger scale) can be argued down rather than up in the sense that there is a hazy line between a corrupt deal and getting a good deal. This will probably allow the file to be quietly dropped once it is felt that the political damage inflicted on those PSD members involved is enough to make the chances of PSD returning to office in 2008 remote.
If the strategy does not work and PSD returns, one can comfortably assume that anti-corruption measures will be vigorously pursued against those currently in the driving seat.
As there are more than 2 years to go before elections, it can also be assumed that there will be further cases against key PSD members to further weaken the party and damage it in the eyes of the voters.
The key to this whole political game and one of the two reasons it is being played (destroying PSD being the first) is to hoodwink the EU into accepting that a few inconclusive investigations into alleged low level corruption by political enemies actually mean Romania is cracking down on corruption. Clearly Romania has moved on from the days when each investigation can ensure a conviction but never achieving a single conviction in a meaningful corruption case is also telling.
One hopes the EU can see what is happening but this window dressing of an attempt to fight corruption blended with a shameless politicisation of the whole process will probably suffice for Romania to be nodded into the club by 2007. Keeping these actions hot without actually deciding anything until later this year when membership for 2007 is decided will be the plan.
Once Romania is in, there will be a collective sigh of relief and an almost certain slackening in all the wrong fields, anti-corruption being one of them.
When one hears rumours about corruption, there is little distinction between which party the perpetrators belong to. If politics is about self-interest (which it is in Romania) why cut off the hand that feeds so well. Neither left nor right will necessarily maintain this so-called "crackdown" beyond what has to be done to keep the EU happy.
If the EU does ultimately accept Romania and Bulgaria for bigger geo-political reasons (see Greek membership in 1980 and Greece today) that will unfortunately put back a real improvement in the political class for decades to come.
* Oliver Meister is an English lawyer based in Bucharest working for CME, a US company that invests in television stations in Eastern Europe, including Pro TV, Acasa and Pro Cinema in Romania. He is also a director of Pro TV SA, the operator of the Romanian television channels CME has invested and is part of the management team that supervises the television station Studio 1+1 which CME owns in Ukraine
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